Category: Pascha

I have gathered all of the 2017 posts from my blog related to the Sundays after Pascha into one document which is now available for viewing. You can find that document at 2017 Post-Paschal Sundays (PDF).

You can find PDF links for all of the blogs I posted for each of the past 10 years for Great Lent, Holy Week, Pascha, Post-Paschal Sundays and many other topics at Fr. Ted’s PDFs.

“Brethren, I may say to you confidently of the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.” (Acts 2:29)

“…have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong.” (Matthew 12:26-27)

In the Scriptures, belief in the resurrection of the dead is not common. When a person died, they remained dead throughout time – the tombs of the dead are still with us reminding us those folk are still dead. And yet, Jesus challenges His contemporaries to look again at their scriptures, for they do in fact witness to life after death and to the resurrection of the dead. It is Christ who makes this belief and teaching possible.

“Still, the notion of an ‘afterlife with God,’ following death, is entirely alien to the Hebrew Scriptures. Indeed, it is also alien to the New Testament, unless a person has died in the redemptive faith of Christ. It is Christ alone who delivers man from death, including the saints of the Old Testament. Nowhere in the Bible is there an afterlife apart from Christ. Whatever afterexistence there may be apart from Christ, it is certainly no real life.” (Patrick Henry Reardon, The Trial of Job, p. 54

“Without the soul, the body can accomplish nothing. Likewise the soul without the body, though for different reasons: the body needs the soul in order to live and move, whereas the soul needs the body in order to reveal itself, to express itself, and to act on the external world. For the body is the servant, the vehicle or instrument of the soul, essential to the exercise of its functions of relating to the world and manifesting its faculties in the conditions of the earthly existence. In this setting, all of the soul’s activities, insofar as they reveal themselves, can only exist through the body. Moreover, they remain unexpressed if the necessary bodily organs are unable to function properly. Such is the case with some illnesses that prevent these organs from expressing certain of the soul’s capacities, something for which they had naturally been ordered.” (Jean-Claude Larchet, THEOLOGY OF THE BODY, p 18-19)

So it is that each of us is a composite of soul and body, neither of these two substances alone make a human – it is only their union which cause a human being to come into existence. Both are necessary for each of us to be fully human; neither substance can act alone without the other. Whatever affects one affects the other. Sin whether originating in the will or the body affects the whole human, body and soul. And as Larchet notes when illness affects any part of the body, the soul’s capacities are denigrated. Without the body’s physical eyes to see, the soul’s ability to navigate in the world is also affected, suffering limitation. And so when Christ heals the man born blind, He is restoring or recreating the man’s full humanity – gifting this man so that his soul can fully experience the abundant life of grace.

In the Psalms it is idols, not humans which are portrayed as being blind and not even as capable as any human being.

“The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they speak not, they have eyes, but they see not, they have ears, but they hear not, nor is there any breath in their mouths.” (Psalm 135:15-17)

The idols are lifeless, and lack not just one bodily function or sense, but all of them. On the other hand, the Law of the Lord, just like the Holy Spirit, enlivens every soul and gives sight even to the blind:

“The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes…” (Psalm 19:7-8)

Each and every organ in the body serves a particular role in allowing us to fully experience God in this world and also to totally serve the Lord.

“Like Scripture, the Fathers often point out the role played in our spiritual life by the different members of the body. They stress that their purpose is not merely physiological but also one of enabling us, in superlative fashion, to attune ourselves to God and unite ourselves with him. This is above all the case with the senses, which should contribute to our perception of God in all sensible phenomena. Thus, the eyes should enable us to see God in the harmony and beauty of creation and so to praise him and give him thanks. The ears should enable us to ‘listen to the divine word and God’s laws,’ but also to hear God in all the world’s sounds. The sense of smell should enable us to detect in every creature the ‘good odor of God’ (2 Cor 2:15); the sense of taste to discern in all food ‘how good the Lord is’ (Ps 33:9). . . . Thus the spiritual function of the hands is to carry out for and in God whatever is necessary in order to do his will, to act on behalf of justice, to reach out to him in prayer (cf. Ps 87:10; Ps 143:6; Tim 2:8). The task of the feet is to serve God by allowing us to go to where we may do good. The tongue should proclaim the Good News and sing of God’s glory. The heart is to be the place of prayer; the lungs are to produce the breath that regulates and supports it.” (Jean-Claude Larchet, THEOLOGY OF THE BODY, p 28-29)

And though we can both experience and accomplish goodness in and through the body and its organs and part, it is also true that the same body can be used to experience and accomplish evil.

“A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, winks with his eyes, scrapes with his feet, points with his finger, with perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord; therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly; in a moment he will be broken beyond healing. There are six things which the LORD hates, seven which are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and a man who sows discord among brothers.” (Proverbs 6:12-19)

Our bodies are fully capable of experiencing the Holy Spirit and theosis. It is not only the soul which has a relationship to God’s Spirit for the body is created to be a divine temple for the Spirit. And as we see in the quotes above, there is an important relationship between certain parts of the body and the Holy Spirit. Thus, at Chrismation, we anoint the head, ears, eyes, lips, nose, breast, hands and feet of the new Christian, saying each time, “The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

“At the same time, the Fathers refer to the spiritual benefits that our body obtains from being directed towards God in this way, for, acting under the direction of the soul and in collaboration with it, the body too receives the grace of the Holy Spirit. ‘For as God created the sky and the earth as a dwelling place for man,’ notes St. Macarius of Egypt, ‘so he also created man’s body and soul as a fit dwelling for himself to dwell in and take pleasure in the body, having for a beautiful bride the beloved soul, made according to his own image.’ This is simply to repeat in another form St. Paul’s assertion that the body is the ‘temple of the Holy Spirit’ (1 Cor 6:19).” (Jean-Claude Larchet, THEOLOGY OF THE BODY, p 29)

God created our bodies to be the very means by which we can accomplish His will and grow in virtue and holiness.

“For the Fathers, it is by means of the virtues that we can become like God, and it is in this likeness to God, acquired by a collaboration between free will and the grace given us that we can ultimately become a partaker of divine life – a participation to which we are both destined by our nature and called by personal vocation.” (Jean-Claude Larchet, THEOLOGY OF THE BODY, p 27)

We become like God not by escaping our bodies, but by willfully making them instruments of goodness. We become virtuous and holy in and through our bodies – and all who do with, in and through our bodies are potential means for us to unite ourselves to God. We have the task to choose wisely what we do so as to invite the Holy Spirit into our bodies.

“Christ was a stranger on the earth, because even though the world was made through Him, the world knew Him not. Indeed he was a stranger even among His own brethren, for He came to his own home; and his own people received him notJn. 1.11-12). But, as St. Makarios suggests, it is not simply in this sense that Christ agreed to become a stranger, but in the deeper sense that Christ has rejected all rights.

In one glance, the eyes of Christ can encompass the universe. In a single gesture, He can embrace and contain all things, both in heaven and on earth: His heavenly Father, the Holy Spirit, the angels the stars the planets, everything in an instant. But He did not account equality with God a thing to be grasped at, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, a stranger (Phil. 2.7). It’s as if he said: ‘I refuse every place of rest other than your soul, so that you will know that I, Christ, empty Myselfin order to be filled by you. Though you be a worm and not a man(Ps. 21.6), I will honor you in this way, so that you can become My bride, My bridal chamber, My completion, My perfection. And though you are but a wretched earth-worm, I will make you the most beautiful thing there is: I will make you God. And because I am God, I lack nothing: I am in need of nothing. Whatever I have done, whatever I have become, has all been on account of you. My self-abasement, My exile, My hunger, My thirst, my loneliness, are things that I have voluntarily chosen and which can only be satisfied by you; for you are My food, and My clothing, shelter and place of rest.’

This is how far God has abased Himself! In order to fill us with His plentitude, He has voluntarily emptied Himself. This is what He means when He says: I was a stranger, and I was hungry and thirsty, and so on, namely: that He has rejected everything in order to embrace everything. He abandoned the bosom of the Father(cf. Jn 1.18) to make His home in our hearts. Though He was rich, for your sake He became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich (2 Cor 8.9).

‘Let us therefore,”’St. Makarios concludes, ‘welcome Him into our hearts’ –and here he reverses what he has just said– ‘for he is our food and drink and eternal life.’” (The Way of the Spirit, pp. 246-247).

Christ who hungers and thirsts in His life on earth, hungers and thirsts for our salvation by becoming the food and drink of eternal life.

“How can the Christian overcome the fear of death? The faith that is central to the hope of Christians is the recognition of Christ’s conquest of death and that his resurrection is the first fruits, the guarantee of the universal resurrection of all human beings at the end of time. ‘In order to be able to face death one must be anchored in the certainty, an experiential and not only theoretical certainty, of eternal life. . . there is in this possession of eternal life a certainty that reduces to naught the fear of death–not the pain of separation, not the regret that death exists, but the fear.’”

Two Pentecostarion hymns from the 4th Week of Pascha caught my attention during Monday Matins. The first is a pretty standard Orthodox Paschal hymn. It focuses on Christ being truly first in all things. Christ is the one who existed first, before all humans and in whose image all humans are created. Christ is the firstborn of the dead – first fully risen from the dead who did not die again, the first fruits of all those who have died. Jesus is the God-man, the incarnate God who created the world and who by His incarnation restores human nature.

CHRIST IS RISEN FROM THE DEAD, THE FIRST FRUITS OF THEM THAT SLEEP, THE FIRSTBORN OF ALL CREATION, AND THE MAKER OF ALL CREATED THINGS. IN HIS FLESH HE RESTORED THE NATURE OF MANKIND GROWN CORRUPT. DEATH, YOUR REIGN IS OVER, FOR THE MASTER OF ALL HAS MADE YOUR POWER OF NO AVAIL!

DEATH, YOUR REIGN IS OVER! This is the proclamation of Christianity, the Good News of Jesus Christ. The power of death has been destroyed, shown to be of limited duration and not capable to holding all humans. The reign of Christ begins and He shall reign forever and ever. It is in Christ’s flesh, not just in His divinity, that He redeems, restores, recreates humanity. The incarnation is essential to salvation.

The second hymn focuses on the Gospel of the Paralytic, John 5:1-15, which is the Gospel Lesson for the 4th Sunday after Pascha. The hymns playfully examines who really was paralyzed – the man ill for 38 years, or the scribes who felt God’s healing on the Sabbath day violates the rules for keeping Sabbath. There are many forms of paralyses in life – not only physical, but spiritual, mental, and moral as well. One can keep the letter of the law but still be paralyzed in one’s faith, love and thought – so rigidly frozen that one is incapable of acting in faith or in love.

YOU LOOSED THE PARALYTIC’S BONDS ON THE SABBATH DAY, BUT THE SCRIBES WERE PARALYZED, BOUND IN ENVY’S CHAINS. THEY COMPLAINED: IT IS NOT LAWFUL TO HEAL ON THE SABBATH! OUR FATHERS KEPT THE SABBATH REST; WILL YOU NOW DESTROY THIS COMMAND? THEY WOULD NOT RECOGNIZE YOU AS MASTER OF THE LAW, AND THE SAVIOR OF OUR SOULS!

Jesus kept the blessed Sabbath on the 7th day of creation, and also while lying in the tomb following His crucifixion. His resurrection from the dead shows He is the holy One, the Savior of all humankind and Lord of the Sabbath.

While Christianity focuses on Christ, it doesn’t begin with Jesus. Christ comes to heal humanity, but the illness which He heals began thousands of years earlier with the entrance of sin and death into human existence. St. Gregory of Nyssa offers an understanding of what was the ill that Jesus Christ came to cure. First Gregory notes that sin is not a thing that is permanent or can even exist without a host. Sin is dependent for its existence on human free will. If humans made no choices, sin could not exist. Humans were created with the possibility of sinless existence, but we have made choices that led us away from God – separation from God is death.

Is it possible that there was a physical death that could exist that didn’t involve separation from God? Is it possible that living things could age and even die but remain united to God? Is this what God intended from the beginning? Certainly in Christ we have that reality achieved – even death doesn’t separate us from God. Jesus the man is never separated from divinity even in His death and descent into Hades, the place of the dead. In Christ, we all remain united to Him even through our own deaths and after our burials. In Christ, death no longer separates us from God! Whether this was something totally new, or a restoration of what existed at the beginning of creation, doesn’t matter for it is the new reality – creation renewed in Christ.

St. Gregory begins describing the first human, the first Adam, who had all of the potential for good, and yet chose to separate himself from all that is good.

So too the first man who arose from the earth–he, indeed, who begot all the evil that is in man–and it in his power to choose all the good and beautiful things of nature that lay around him. And yet he deliberately instituted by himself things that were against nature; in rejecting virtue by his own free choice he fashioned the temptation to evil. For sin does not exist in nature apart from free will; it is not a substance in its own right. All of God’s creatures are good, and nothing He has made may be despised: He made all things very good(Gen. 1:31). But in the way I have described, the whole procession of sin entered into man’s life for his undoing, and from a tiny source poured out upon mankind an infinite sea of evil. The soul’s divine beauty, that had been an imitation of its archetype, was, like a blade, darkened with the rust of sin; it no longer kept beauty of the image it once possessed by nature, and was transformed into the ugliness of evil.

St. Gregory describes a common idea in Orthodox patristic writers: there is an inner goodness in every human being – the image of God is imprinted on each of us and is never lost. Sin cannot take the image of God away from us. Rather that image becomes covered with the rust and dirt of sin. The most precious diamond in the world if caked with layers of dried and hardened clay will look like any rock. Yet, beneath those layers of hardened mud lies encased that most valuable diamond.

Thus man, who was so great and precious, as the Scriptures call him, fell from the value he had by nature. It is like people who slip and fall in the mud and get their faces so smeared that even their relatives cannot recognize them. So man fell into the mud of sin, and lost his likeness to the eternal Godhead. And in its stead he has, by his sin, clothed himself in an image that is of clay and mortal; and this is the image we earnestly counsel him to remove and wash away in the purifying waters of the Christian life. Once this earthly covering is removed, the soul’s beauty will once again shine forth.

In sticking with the imagery of a diamond encased in hardened clay, St. Gregory sees each human person. No longer do we see the glorious image of God in each other. Baptism begins to wash away these layers of filth, the accretion of a life time of sin. Baptism washes our eyes so we can see the reality of God’s hand in creation and the image of God in others. Baptism helps wash away our own layers of sin so that others can see the image of God in us.

By our human efforts we can merely clear away the accumulated filth of sin and thus allow the hidden beauty of the soul to shine forth.

This lesson is taught, I think, in the Gospel, where our Lord speaks to those who have ears for the mysteries that Wisdom teaches us: The kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21). I think that the text here points out that the gift of God is not separated from our nature nor is it far from those who choose to look for it. It dwells within everyone of us, ignored and forgotten, choked with the cares and pleasures of life (Luke 8:14), but is rediscovered when we turn our minds to it.

But if we must confirm this doctrine in other ways, the same lesson is, I think, taught by our Lord in the search for the lost drachma (Luke 15:8-9)…and surely the hidden meaning of the coin is the image of our King, which has not yet been completely lost, but is simply hidden under dirt. By the dirt I think we must understand the uncleanness of the flesh; for, when we cleanse and sweep this away by a fervent life, what we are looking for will be made manifest. And then the soul that finds the coin rightly rejoices and calls in her neighbors to share in her joy. The soul’s associates are, of course, the various faculties of the soul, which the text here calls neighbors. For when the great image of the King is discovered and shines forth again, just as it was stamped on our drachma in the beginning by the Creator, stamped on the hearts of everyone, then do all our faculties unite in that divine joy and gladness as they gaze upon the ineffable beauty of what they have found. For she says: Rejoice with me because I have found the groat which I had lost (Luke 15:9). (From Glory to Glory, pp.13-15)

In all such imagery and thinking, we find that sin is not limited to law breaking which God must punish. Sin is experienced by us as being covered by layers of filth – of our being buried beneath layers of sin so that we can no longer see clearly, and reality itself (the image of God in each of us is so covered as to be totally obscured from sight). Salvation is not merely a release from legal retribution, but is a restoration and recreation and regeneration of the human being. Overcoming sin is thus not just a matter of suffering an appropriate punishment, but requires a washing, a cleansing which restores the human to his or her glorious nature. It is a healing of soul and body which we need, which is given to us by Christ, the true physician of our lives.

In a previous post, When Death Wept, I mentioned that early Christian writers were far more interested in how Death reacted to Christ then they were in what it is like to be dead or to traverse through the place of the dead. Their interest in Hades was because it is a place Christ has conquered and filled – it is a place where we will meet Jesus Christ our Lord, not be separated from Him.

Christ’s descent into Hades liberates all those held captive by death.

These same writers were also very interested in what Paradise, the garden God prepared for His first human creatures, must have been like. This was of greater interest to these early writers than taking a sojourn through circles of hell or through purgatory or toll houses. They focused often on where God is, which turns out to be everywhere including Hades, rather than in concocting places where God is not. St. Ephrem of Syria (d. 373AD) poetically describes Paradise in his volumes of poems.

Perhaps that blessed tree,

the Tree of Life,

is, by its rays,

the sun of Paradise;

its leaves glisten

and on them are impressed

the spiritual graces

of that Garden.

In the breezes the other trees

bow down in worship

before that sovereign

and leader of the trees.

In the very midst He planted

the Tree of Knowledge

endowing it with awe,

hedging it in with dread,

so that it might straightaway serve

as a boundary to the inner region of Paradise.

St. Ephrem describes Paradise to be God’s temple, like the Temple in Jerusalem. Or rather, as we know, the Temple in Jerusalem was built based upon the Temple which was revealed to Moses (Exodus 25:9, 26:30; Numbers 8:4; Acts 7:44). Paradise had different regions according to St. Ephrem which had boundaries marking that some regions were even more holy than other regions. Those who could enter each region were limited, which is the pattern which the Jerusalem Temple followed with its outer courts and the inner Holy of Holies.

Two things did Adam hear

in that single decree:

that they should not eat of it

and that, by shrinking from it,

they should perceive that it was not lawful

to penetrate further, beyond that Tree.

While Genesis portrays the Tree being in the middle of the Garden, St. Ephrem sees the Tree as a boundary which Adam was not permitted to trespass beyond. The serpent was not even allowed in the Garden, but craftily learned about the inner structure of the Garden by inquiring about it from Eve. To talk to the serpent, Eve and Adam had to intentionally leave the inner sanctuary. The serpent didn’t really have Eve and Adam’s ear – they had to go out of their way to listen to the serpent, according to St. Ephrem.

The serpent could not

enter Paradise;

for neither animal

nor bird

was permitted to approach

the outer region of Paradise,

and Adam had to go out

to meet them,

so the serpent cunningly learned

through questioning Eve,

the character of Paradise

what it was and how it was arranged.

According to St. Ephrem, the serpent’s goal all along was to learn about the design of the Garden – of God’s Temple. His discussion in Genesis 3 with Eve is really his crafty way to learn the layout of the Temple. The serpent wanted to know what was in the midst of the Garden. Once the serpent had that knowledge he hatched his plan to get Adam and Eve to turn away from God.

The serpent couldn’t harm Adam or Eve, but he was able to figure out a fatal flaw in them! Once he surmised that the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge was the key, the serpent suggested to Eve that there would be no harm in eating the fruit, that the fruit like everything in the garden was good to be had. Wisdom says there is a time for everything. It was not yet Eve and Adam’s time to partake of the fruit, but they bit on the serpent’s temptation, and the rest is history, so to speak.

At some point in early Christian history, Christian theologians began imaging Christ’s descent into Hades, the place of the dead. Unlike concerns of later Christians, they didn’t have Christ describe what Hades is like or what it’s like to be dead or how to make the proper sojourn through the place of the dead as was the theme of pagan religion. They took a completely different point of view: they imagined how Death reacted to facing Christ in Hades. Death realizes that he is suddenly confronted by God, face to face in a place which Death thought he was all powerful and far removed from the reach of God. These early Christian theologians personified or anthropomorphized Death, and then rejoiced in Death’s shriveling and cowering before real power – the eternal God. Death felt all powerful – able to claim every human person God created and to enslave them in Hades. In the face of the crucified Christ, Death realizes he has no real power even over the dead.

In the midst of Death’s own kingdom, Death realized he still had a Lord, and that he himself really wasn’t a lord at all, but was powerless in the face of God. Christ came to destroy death not to describe what the place of the dead is like. He didn’t come to tell us how to navigate our way through Hades or Toll Houses either. Christ destroyed death and then by His resurrection showed us the path to the Kingdom of God. Christ smashed the gates of Hades and opened the gate of Paradise to His human creatures. By entering Hades, Christ transformed even Hades into Heaven! So the Syriac-Persian Christian Aphrahat (d. 345AD) writes:

“When Jesus, the slayer of Death, came and put on a body (Ibesh pagra) from the seed of Adam, and was crucified in the body and tasted death; and as soon as Death perceived that he descended to him, he quivered in his place and became agitated at the sight of Jesus. He shut up the doors and did not want to receive him. However, he shattered the doors and entered to him [Death] and began to rob him of his possessions. As the dead saw light shining in darkness, they raised up their heads from the bondage of death and looked forth and saw the brightness of Christ, the King.

Then the powers of darkness sat lamenting, for Death was destroyed and stripped of his authority. And Death has tasted deadly poison (sam mauta) and his hands slackened and he realized that the dead will revive and escape his tyranny. As he [Christ] conquered Death by spoiling him of his possessions, Death cried out and wept bitterly and said: “Go out of my place and do not come back. Who is that who dared to enter my home alive?” And then Death cried out as he saw darkness starting to disperse and some among the righteous ones who were lying down there, rose up to ascend with him [Christ]. And he said [to Death] that he will return at the end of time, and will release all captives from his authority, and will draw them to himself, so that they could see light. Thus, as Christ had completed his ministry (teshmeshta) among the dead, Death let him escape out of his region, for he could not endure his presence there. For it was not sweet for him to swallow Christ up as [it was with] the rest of the dead. And Death did not prevail over the Holy One and he was not subjected to corruption.” (quoted by Hilarion Alfeyev, Christ the Conqueror of Hell, pp. 69-70)